The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has awarded a $200 million contract for construction on the tunnels that will serve as the backbone for the long delayed effort to provide Long Island Rail Road access to Grand Central Terminal.
The contract was awarded to the Michels Corporation to cover work on the south segment of the future LIRR station, with contracts for the north and central segments to be awarded later.
“We’re pleased to be entering this phase of construction for East Side access in Manhattan. This contract begins the construction on the interior work that 160,000 weekday LIRR customers will experience when the new LIRR station terminal opens below Grand Central,” said Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction.
Scheduled to be completed in 2019, the LIRR says East Side access could cut commute times up to 40 minutes for passengers who must currently take lengthy subway trips to work after arriving at Penn Station on the LIRR.
The East Side Access project, which according to the MTA is the largest transportation project in the country and the first expansion to the LIRR in more than a century, is expected to cost $8.24 billion and is projected to begin service in 2019. The platform will be built underneath the existing lower level of Grand Central Terminal.
Elements of the project have already begun to affect stations on the North Shore. A proposal to replace the Colonial Road Bridge in the Village of Thomaston and build a pocket track extension for improved rail service has been in the works since 2011.
LIRR officials also said the Colonial Road Bridge project will improve rush-hour service and seat availability from Great Neck and other stations on the Port Washington line as well as better service for special events at Citifield and the U.S. open.
The project had faced initial opposition from Village of Thomaston Mayor Robert Stern, who cited objections from his residents to the noise that could result from the track expansion. But by December 2012 Stern had voiced support for the project, saying the LIRR had addressed his concerns.
The LIRR is also seeking to build a track expansion at its Port Washington station, which it says will provide more express service to Citi Field as well as Grand Central Terminal once the East Side Access project is completed. The LIRR also says the expansion will improve service in Manhasset and Port Washington, but at the cost of parking around the Port Washington train station.
Those plans led to a war of words between Town of North Hempstead Councilwoman and town supervisor candidate Dina De Giorgio (R-Port Washington) and current Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman (D-Great Neck).
De Giorgio wrote in a May flyer to residents that the project would “turn Main Street into a railroad siding” and accused Kaiman of lacking transparency.
Kaiman rejected the criticism, saying the town had no legal authority to prevent the LIRR from building an expansion.
